The Echo Nest knows approximately 2.4 million artists as part of our database of music information, which is the largest in the world. However, we also keep a list of artists to ban from our system intentionally, so they never get recommended on any of our clients' services, or in their apps.

This isn't a matter of taste (so Coldplay and Raffi are in no danger). It's because those banned artists are spammers.

Musical spam is much less familiar than email spam, but it works the same way: If it's too hard to find the 10 people who might enjoy a shady or questionable product, spammers go for sheer volume, in their attempts to spoil your online experience with unwanted email or music.

When [chess computing] engines suggest surprising moves, or arrangements of pieces that look "ugly" to human sensibilities, they are often seeing more deeply into the game than their users. They are not perfect; sometimes long-term strategy still eludes them. But players have learned from computers that some kinds of chess positions are playable, or even advantageous, even though they might violate general principles. Having seen how machines go about attacking and especially defending, humans have become emboldened to try the same ideas.

Computers have gone so far that the top human players are now those who most often play the moves that would be chosen by the best engines (which sport names like Houdini, HIARCS and Rybka). Magnus Carlsen's biographers dub him the "hero of the computer era." Indeed, a study published on ChessBase.com earlier this year showed that in the tournament Mr. Carlsen won to qualify for the world championship match, he played more like a computer than any of his opponents.

A team of researchers from Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology have created a new kind of loudspeaker that relies on nanoparticle-infused membranes to generate sound without need of a permanent magnet.

The main constituent of the membrane is cellulose fiber -- the polysaccharide component of plant cell walls. Researchers mixed the cellulose fibers in solution with ferromagnetic salts at 90 degree Celsius, then left the mixture to bond over the course of two months. The remaining water was drained at the end of this period to reveal a hydrogel (a hydrophilic collection of polymers) composed of magnetic cellulose fibers.

David Cameron announced in 2011 that every NHS patient would be a research patient, with their records opened up to private healthcare firms. He promised that our records would be anonymised and we'd have a right to opt out. I pointedout that anonymisation doesn't work very well (as did the Royal Society) but the Information Commissioner predictably went along with the charade (and lobbyists are busy fixing up the new data protection regulation in Brussels to leave huge loopholes for health service management and research).

Although she was a substitute witness hired after Apple's first accounting expert died, [Apple accounting expert witness Julia] Davis kept her cool under tough cross-examination by Samsung, according to jurors. They call her a "superstar witness."

On two of the three baskets - lost profits and lost royalties - the jurors agreed that Apple should get everything it asked for.

On the third - Samsung's $230m in profits - they "butted heads," according to Colleen Allen, the former U.S. military medic who served as forewoman.

Samsung had argued that there were operating costs associated with those profits - $178m, to be exact - and that to be fair the jury ought to reduce Samsung's profits of $230m by $178m.

Allen didn't buy it. She agreed with Davis that "absolutely none of it should come out," because Samsung hadn't provided evidence to show that all those operating costs were associated with the devices at issue in the case.

Notable that the damages assessed for the Nexus 4G ramped up considerably in the new result.

I'd never heard about revenge porn prior to the call, but for many months after, I would hear about little else. I cancelled appointments, put work on hold and ignored routine tasks because a naked image rarely comes off the Internet unless someone becomes obsessed with its removal. RP website operators are consumed with what they do; therefore, anyone who hopes to prevail against them must be equally consumed.

I emailed the site owner, Hunter Moore, and asked him to take down the photo in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He refused.

I was not surprised...

The website was not about pornography; it was about ridiculing and hurting others.

An astonishingly determined woman - which is what was needed in this case.

Handset vendors are expected to continue launching large-size smartphones mainly with 5- to 6in displays, as sales of smartphones with a display size of 6in and above have been weaker than expected, according to industry sources.

The current availability of large-size smartphones with over 6in displays include Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Mega 6.3, Huawei's Ascend Mate, Sony Mobile Communications' Xperia Z Ultra and HTC's HTC One Max. But the sources said that sales of these models have been short of original expectations due mainly to concerns of mobility.

While sales of 5-7in smartphones accounted for over 20% of global smartphone sales at the end of the third quarter of 2013, the ratio of smartphones with display sizes of up to 6-7in reached a mere 3%, revealed the sources.

All PC companies are struggling as consumers spend money on new smartphones and tablets instead of PCs. Some, such as Lenovo, have been able to offset that with steady sales to corporate clients or, in Dell and Hewlett-Packard's case, sales of consulting services.

Acer, however, has historically focused on selling low-frills computers to consumers, making up their low profitability with large volumes.

Margins in the consumer PC business have become so tight that US companies are likely going to pull back from it, leaving only Asian brands more familiar with low margin work, Jerry Shen, Asus' chief executive, said recently.